


Vacticinium ex eventu

by Nemainofthewater



Series: The Welters Challenge 2019 [3]
Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: A little, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Destiny, Don't copy to another site, Fix-It, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Self-Indulgent, Starts dark, Swearing, Time Travel, Timey-Wimey, Welters Challenge 2019, but also canon compliant, destiny subversion, ends fluffy, fen is a human beam of sunlight, fen unfucks the timeline, fen-centric, for everything, post 4x13, wish fulfilment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-02-29 21:44:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18786820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nemainofthewater/pseuds/Nemainofthewater
Summary: Vacticinium ex eventu: a technical theological or historiographical term referring to a prophecy written after the author already had information about the events being "foretold".Destiny: from the Latin destinare, meaning to aim at, to devote, to resolve, to fix, to choose.Fen travels back in time and fulfils her destiny. Or prevents it. It's kinda unclear.





	Vacticinium ex eventu

  1. _(archery) I aim at_



“Fen. I don’t say this lightly. But- you’re our only hope.”

 

“Star Wars,” Fen says softly, a wave of love and pain and friendship rising in her.

 

Because Josh had been the one to show her those films, all three of them (while muttering something about ‘Prequels that didn’t exist’). He’d made a joke, something like: “Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope,” when he was searching for the special chocolate, the one that tasted like honey and sunlight, in the kitchens at Whitespire and she had been the only one who knew where it was kept.

 

(Mostly because she was hoarding it for the bad nights, when all she could think about was her baby, dead before she had seen her, buried in some lonely cave in the Faery realm.)

 

When she had broken down into tears, wrenching, ugly tears that came with copious amounts of snot and made her eyes red and sore for days, he had sat there with his arms around her for at least twenty minutes. They had split the chocolate, eating it piece by piece and sharing secrets as they went. Josh…couldn’t understand. Not really. But he could listen. And, two weeks later when he had returned from earth, he had brought his computer, a projector and the Star Wars films with him and they had sat together and watched the Saga of Luke Skywalker and the triumph of good versus evil.

 

Margo had wandered in and out of the room, muttering things about doing ‘actual work’ and how Luke’s ‘dumbass nephew’ was going to fuck everything back up less than a film later. But she had also helped Fen arrange her hair in the traditional style of Alderaan as shown by Princess Leia the next day for the Council meeting and had glared at Tick when he looked like he was going to comment on it.

 

Star Wars is inexorably linked with the friendship and family that she’s found with these Children of Earth, as lacking in common sense as they might be. And…she can feel the tears welling up. Because she is currently crouched in the Flying Forest with Josh, her feet bloody and clothes torn. She doesn’t know where Eliot and Margo are, and a part of her, a large part of her, is stricken by the fact that they haven’t responded to their bunnies. That they’re abandoned her and Josh to a slow, tortuous death from the Dark King.

 

(Another part of her, the part that’s been battered and bruised and beaten down, that part of her is relieved that they haven’t come. Because she has no doubt that they would have taken a stand against the Dark King, and that they would have been killed. Just like Tick, and Rafe, and Abigail: just like she would have been if Josh hadn’t grabbed her and brought them both out through the secret tunnels that run underneath the palace.)

 

“We can still make it back,” she says, voice wavering, “We can find Margo and Eliot and-”

 

“No,” Josh says, cutting her off firmly, “We can’t. Because we’re surrounded: can’t you hear them in the distance?”

 

And Fen can. The hounds. The beasts that the Dark King has taken and warped with his magic. The hounds that have their scent, that don’t need to eat or sleep or rest. That will rip them apart when they find them.

 

(That have already ripped Fray apart when they went to her for shelter. Fen will never forget the sight of Humbledrum, half mad from grief, buried in the hounds as he tried to avenge his love.)

 

“You’re our only hope Fen,” Josh says, “I can hold them off for a bit. Long enough for you to find the White Lady and change all of this.”

 

“I don’t understand,” Fen says, “Why you can’t be the one to go back.”

 

Josh grimaces.

 

“I just- I can’t. Please. You have to trust me. You’re the one who’s got to go back. Please Fen. For me. For Margo.”

 

Fen looks at his face. Sees the determination in it.

 

“Ok,” she whispers. And then she darts off further into the woods, hands on her knives, zigzagging through the trees.

 

(What she doesn’t see: Josh rising to his feet, resigned. The hounds surrounding him but making no move to attack: not yet. And a figure dressed all in black striding out from the trees, his gait unsteady.

 

“Hey Eliot,” Josh says, “It’s not too late. We can still get through this without anyone getting hurt.”

 

And Eliot, dressed in his widower’s weeds, face artificially calm, eyes empty and Shadeless, raises a hand. Josh is lifted into the air by his throat, choking. He can hear the dogs around him: their barks sound like laughter.

 

“I’m afraid it is,” Eliot says calmly, inherited magic flaring around him dramatically.

 

“W…e. Still. Bring Q. Back.” Josh chokes out.

 

Eliot shakes his head sadly, no true regret in his eyes. He’s already too far gone.

 

“He’s already crossed over,” he says, “There’s no coming back from that. Or so Hades told me. Before I killed him.”

 

He smiles gently.

 

“I sacrificed my Shade. My future. My death. _Bambi_ -” his composure doesn’t break, but there’s something that might have once been emotion in his eyes. “I have nothing left. Nothing but my kingdom. Because despite everything, I am still High King in my blood. And if it’s time for me to reclaim my kingdom.”

 

He jerks his hand and Josh goes limp.

 

“Now my little wife,” he says, “It’s your turn.”)

 

#

 

Fen’s heartbeat is drowning out all other sound: thump thump thump. It sounds like a scared rabbit. She can’t hear anything else through its panicked beat. The ground underneath her is treacherous: suddenly she’s slipping and she knows that it’s the end, it’s the end of everything because she’s going to fall-

 

She slams into something solid. But it doesn’t feel like a tree. She looks up.

 

“Hurry,” says the White Lady and pulls her into a hollowed-out tree.

 

“What?” Fen asks. Then stops. Because she can hear them. The hounds. She and the White Lady stand in tense silence until the shrill barks have passed.

 

“It won’t fool them for long,” the White Lady says. She stares Fen directly in the eyes: “I believe that you had a boon of ask of me?”

 

Fen nods. “I need-” she says, “I need you to get rid of the Dark King. To bring Eliot and Margo back so that they can stop him.”

 

The White Lady looks pained.

 

“Child,” she says gently, “That I cannot do.”

 

Fen gulps. “Then they’re dead?” she asks, voice wavering. It would explain why they hadn’t replied to any of her bunnies. Why they hadn’t come to help her and their kingdom. There’s a void opening in her chest but she stamps down on it, viciously. Imagines a wall of solid steel between her and her emotions. Boxes them in mercilessly until she can’t feel anything anymore.

 

“If I start crying, then I’ll never stop,” she remembers Margo saying, and she knows now what she meant. Because nothing, not even the Ritual Baring of Breasts will ever fill this ache in her heart.

 

“Then- you’re useless,” Fen hears herself saying as if from a long distance.

 

The White Lady smiles grimly.

 

“Not quite,” she says. She takes three items out from behind her back. A long white feather. A scale. And a green cloak.

 

“Are those-?” Fen asks.

 

The White Lady nods.

 

“My brethren sacrificed themselves,” she says, “So that I might have the power to send you back. You can change all of this Fen. It’s your destiny.”

 

“Send me back?” Fen echoes.

 

“It’s the only way. Back to before this all began. You’re the only one Fen. You must make sure that Fillory does not fall. You have to stop the twin gods without killing them. Only then can we avert this terrible future.”

 

“How-?” Fen asks.

 

The White Lady smiles sadly.

 

“Just by being you,” she says.

 

Fen wants to ask more, because honestly that isn’t helpful in the slightest. She’s really starting to emphasise with Margo and her zero tolerance for vague pronouncement bullshit. But when she opens her mouth to ask the White Lady to clarify further, she’s cut off. Because the White Lady has raised her hands. And Fen is no longer there.

 

  1. _I intend, devote_



She blinks and she is back home. Not at Whitespire. Its cold magnificence has never made her feel anything but out of place, even when she was technically High King. No, home is her father’s forge. The cottage that could probably fit into Whitespire’s throne room at least twice over. The field outside that she laughed and played in, the old oak stump scarred with countless attempts to hone her knife throwing skills.

 

She hasn’t seen her father in years. Not since her marriage. At first her father had been hesitant to interrupt her new life as Queen. Honestly she had been hesitant too, afraid to damage her already fragile relationship with Eliot. Then, when public opinion had condemned her whole family…she had asked her father to stay away. For his own safety.

 

So when she sees him, standing to the side gravely, she can’t help but throw herself at him. He’s surprised, but he catches her and holds her tightly while she sobs into his chest.

 

“Fen?” he says, and she can feel the rumble in his chest as he speaks, “Sweetheart. What’s wrong?”

 

She can’t say anything, overcome with emotion.

 

“I know that it’s a change,” her father says quietly, “I’m sorry dearest. But we have no choice: the bargain was struck long before you were born.”

 

“Jeez,” says a familiar, abrasive voice, and Fen jerks back, “Can we just agree that this wedding is creepily non-consensual on all sides and just like, make you royal armourer instead?”

 

“Margo?” Fen says, voice small. For the first time she properly looks around. It’s dark. There are torches stuck into the ground at regular intervals, and what looks like the entirety of her village staring at her. In the front row, on the groom’s side, are Quentin and Penny and Alice and Julia. Which means… Fen slowly turns to her right. And standing there, hands on her hops and glaring at her, is Margo. Standing next to Eliot, who looks vulnerable, a man falling off a cliff. She hadn’t been able to tell at her marriage, had been too awed by the fabled Children of Earth and her predestined husband.

 

(She had been running through her contingency plans in her mind, thinking of all the ways she could get out of the marriage if worse came to worst. It would be easy to call the FU fighters. They would be happy to help. Ultimately, she had decided against assassination. But it had been close.)

 

“Ok, time out,” Eliot says, “I was ok with the whole arranged marriage schtick, but I’m kinda not great with the whole forcing someone else into it. When I make people cry, I want it to be on purpose.”

 

Fen can feel her father stiffen behind her. They have no choice: a deal was struck and must be honoured.

 

“Eliot,” she says, cutting him off before they can start fighting, “Can I talk to you for a moment? In private?”

 

Eliot exchanges an inscrutable look with Margo. He takes a swig of his flask, and steels himself.

 

“Sure,” he says, “It might be nice to have a conversation before we tie the knot.”

 

And then he allows himself to be dragged away, ducking his head to avoid banging it against the top of the door.

 

“I don’t want to marry you,” Fen says as soon as they’re in the privacy of the cottage, “And I know that you don’t want to marry me. But we don’t have a choice. You need the Leo blade to kill the Beast, and I’ve been entered in a binding magical contract before I was born. This is our destiny. But-” she hesitates, unsure whether Eliot, this Eliot who doesn’t know her at all, who sees her as nothing more than an obstacle, another way to punish himself, whether this Eliot will understand what she’s trying to say: “-just because we’re stuck with each other doesn’t mean that we can’t make something work.”

 

She swallows.

 

“You don’t know me. And I don’t know you-” _but I do we’ve lived and grieved together and had a daughter together_ “-and our weddings are binding. We can’t have intimate physical relationships with anyone but each other.”

 

“Yeah,” Eliot interrupts, “Margo filled me in.”

 

Fen smiles. “Of course she did,” she says quietly, and then continues: “And I want children. I want lots of them. And-and maybe that won’t be possible. I’m not going to force you to have sex with me. Maybe. Maybe we can choose your husband together.”

 

“I get a husband?” Eliot says, something…other in his voice. Fen blinks. That’s right: the Children of Earth had this weird thing about only having one partner.

 

“And I get a wife,” Fen says, “One of each. So we can work something out eventually. But we need to get married first.”

 

Eliot ducks his head. Smiles bitterly.

 

“Not like I’m going to live long enough for it to matter,” he mutters under his breath. Fen frowns. Has he always had this much of a death wish? There had been a lot of things she missed. Well, not this time.

 

“Well!” he says more loudly, “Shall we?”

 

And he gallantly offers her his arm and they sweep back out in front of the assembled crowd. As they speak their vows, she keeps her eyes centred on him. _Don’t die,_ she thinks, hard enough that Penny starts frowning at her, _Please don’t die._

 

That evening, when they’re meant to be consummating their marriage, she lies next to Eliot and listens to him breath. She tentatively takes his hand: “Is this ok?” she asks, her voice loud in the darkness despite being little more than a whisper. There’s a pause. Then: “Yeah,” he whispers back.

 

By the time they wake up the next morning Eliot has sprawled over her like an oct-o-pus, one of those mythical earth creatures that Todd had told her about while they had been debating whether The Little Mermaid or Cats was the better show to go see. She hadn’t slept well that night: everything was catching up with her. The weight of her destiny. All the death that she had to prevent.

 

(Mourning the fact that she would never see Josh again. Not her Josh.)

 

Every time she had closed her eyes, her daughter’s dismembered corpse had flashed before her eyes.

 

At some point Eliot had heard her soft sobbing, and although he hadn’t said anything, he had rolled over and hugged her tightly. It was easier to be close in the relative anonymity of the dark.

 

In the cold light of morning, she lies on her back, absently patting her husband’s hair and knows. She needs to get to work. Let the Children of Earth deal with the Beast. She’ll take care of the rest.

 

  1. _I establish, determine, resolve, consider, predict_



 

Whitespire is a dump. Taking into account the fact that nobody has lived there properly for a hundred years or so, it’s not badly maintained… But there is dust and cobwebs everywhere and a tangible feel of neglect permeates the air.

 

And of course there are the cursed thrones.

 

“Burn them,” she orders, trying to project Margo-ness at Tick.

 

“High King Consort Fen,” Tick simpers, “Although your plan to burn the relics of Fillory’s glorious past is no doubt inspired, the Council will never agree to it.”

 

Fen raises an imperious brow. Attempts to.

 

“I am your Queen,” she says, “And this is my command. I hold all of High King Eliot’s authority in his absence.”

 

Tick bows lowly, imbuing the nominally reverential gesture with so much contempt that Fen can practically see it oozing off him.

 

“As your majesty, High King Consort Fen, commands,” he says. His bow is three degrees too shallow for her position, although there’s no way that Fen the Knifemaker’s daughter would know that.

 

“And make sure no one sits on them!” Fen calls out after Tick’s retreating back.

 

One task down. She glances at the courtyard sundial. She should have another few hours before Eliot and the others get back. Plenty of time.

 

She walks out through the castle until she sees him.

 

“Rafe!” she calls out, causing the other man to start.

 

“Your majesty!” he replies, soft brown eyes quickly looking at the floor as he bows deeply. Fen waits impatiently until he’s done.

 

“I need to talk to an ambassador to the fairy queen,” she says softly. Rafe’s eyes widen in alarm.

 

“Your majesty,” he says, “The fae are mercurial and impossible to bargain with fairly.”

 

“I know,” Fen says, remembering her lost child, the terror that she was going mad when she had started seeing those pasty-faced bastards around the palace when no one else could. She flexes her toes carefully, limber and responsive in a way that her wooden ones had never been.

 

“But I have to.”

 

Rafe studies her eyes carefully, before once again bowing.

 

“As your majesty commands,” he says.

 

#

 

Rafe is nothing if not efficient. It’s less than an hour later that the faery’s ambassador is standing in front of her hastily established throne room.

 

“Your majesty called for an audience with the fae,” he states.

 

“I did,” Fen says. She shudders slightly despite herself. She doesn’t want to do this. She has to: there’s no way that she can stop the twin gods from destroying Fillory without her.

 

“I have information for your queen,” she continues steadily, “Things that she’ll want to hear. About her kin on Earth.”

 

The ambassador stiffens.

 

“What do you know-”

 

Fen raises a hand.

 

“I’ll give you a moment to send her a bunny,” she says, “If she isn’t here already.”

 

She looks around the room warily. She knows more than anyone that the fae can be anywhere at any time. And she’s proven correct, because in a blink of her eyes the faery queen is standing before her.

 

“You wanted my attention, your majesty,” she says, and Fen shivers because her voice is the same. She blinks rapidly, trying to get rid of the strange double vision that’s showing her the faery queen as she last saw her, graceful and composed as she was slowly dismembered for human greed.

 

“I did,” Fen says as steadily as she’s able, “I want to make a deal.”

 

The faery queen smiles, dangerous and beautiful. Contemptuous in the face of mortal stupidity.

 

“And what do you propose?” she asks silkily.

 

“You help me prevent Ember from destroying Fillory,” Fen says, “Without killing him. Or Ember. Or any god. Oh. And maybe stop him from shitting in the Wellspring. And in return, I’ll help you rescue your kin on Earth. And establish laws making faeries full citizens of Fillory. You’ll never be hunted again.”

 

The faery queen raises one perfectly coiffed eyebrow. Unlike Fen’s attempt, it actually works.

 

“You know things little queen,” she says, “Things that you shouldn’t be able to know.”

 

“I- I’ve done this before,” Fen says. It’s probably a bad idea, but she doesn’t know what else to do.

 

“I was sent back by the White Lady to stop a terrible future from coming to pass. And to fulfil my destiny.”

 

“Fulfil your destiny? No. Rather I think that you’re averting it.”

 

Fen shrugs.

 

“I got very little advice,” she says, “Basically I was told to be myself. Well. This is me. Being myself. Please. Help me and let me help you.”

 

“And what will you do if I turn down you oh so generous offer?”

 

“Probably die trying to change things,” Fen says plainly, “But. I’ll help save your people on Earth anyway. I don’t like faeries. But no one deserves to be treated like they are. Like slaves. No. Worse than slaves. Like livestock.”

 

The faery queen narrows her eyes at Fen.

 

“You really don’t know how a negotiation works,” she says, looking amused.

 

“I really wasn’t meant to rule,” Fen admits, “I’m just trying to do the best I can.”

 

“Hmm,” the faery queen says, “You’re doing better than you think. Very well. A deal has been struck. I’ll take care of the young god. And then I shall return one week hence, and you will take me to my kin on Earth.”

 

Then she disappears.

 

“Well,” says Fen brightly to herself, “That went better than expected.”

  1. _I bind, fasten, secure, fix_



 

She needs to keep moving. She hasn’t heard anything back from the faeries, not does she expect to. Not yet. It’s too soon. It doesn’t stop her from twitching anxiously though. Rafe keeps softly suggesting sleep, and Tick has developed a worrying…well, tick of interrupting her every five minutes to enquire as to her health, and whether she wouldn’t rather retire to the royal bedchamber.

 

Fen ignores both of them. She can’t fall asleep. She just can’t. Because they’re late: three days late by her reckoning and she’s terrified that she’s messed something up, cause all of their deaths years early.

 

And every time she closes her eyes she can see the bodies: Rafe ripped into several pieces, arms reaching for Abigail even in death, Tick, face bloody and eyes dim finally silent. His obsequious ways hadn’t been looked fondly upon by the Dark King. No. Better not to sleep.

 

(Not when visions of Eliot and Margo and Josh’s bloody corpses have started to dance through her dreams.)

 

By the time that Eliot and the other get back, Whitespire is in a somewhat respectable shape, Tick and the rest of the Council are-if not cowed exactly- aware that she isn’t going to be a passive little wife, and she’s managed to find Eliot’s favourite (or as he put it ‘least bad’) Fillorian wine. She also hasn’t slept in several days. But it’s fine! Everything is fine.

 

“Wow. You look like shit.”

 

Fen looks up blearily from the pile of documents she’s reviewing on the agricultural taxation system in place at the moment (in brief: there isn’t one). At some point the Council have admitted defeat and left her to her own devices, although Rafe had pointedly left a soft-looking blanket and pillow next to her chair. She hasn’t bathed in days, and she’s sure she’s got ink all over her face from where she banged her face in frustration.

 

“Eliot,” she says, too tired for any emotion but a distant pleasure, “You’re alive.”

 

“I am. And despite battling a crazed lunatic, I look better than you do.”

 

Eliot wrinkles his nose aristocratically, theatrically wafting one hand in front of his.

 

“Come along. Someone called Rafe informed me that you haven’t left this room in over fourteen hours. I’ll run you a bath-” he pauses, “Well, I’ll get someone to run you a bath and then you can meet Margo and the others properly.”

 

“I-”

 

“No protests _dear wife_.” Eliot twists the last two words viciously, only softening when he sees her visible flinch, “Seriously though. You’re associated with me now, and friends don’t let friends walk around with hair Snape would be ashamed of.”

 

Fen has no idea what he’s talking about. It’s a familiar feeling, and she laughs despite herself.

 

She stands up shakily. It’s been a while since she’s eaten properly. Four days, or years depending on how you look at it.

 

Eliot steadies her automatically as she stumbles.

 

“Are we friends?” she asks, looking up at him. She’s ashamed by how needy she sounds, but she can’t help it. He isn’t her Eliot, but he’s an Eliot. He was a terrible husband. But…she’s spent over a year thinking that he was dead. And four days knowing that he was.

 

“Of course we are,” Eliot says flippantly, as nonchalantly as all his serious gestures always are.

 

“In any case. I believe that you have a story to tell us dear wife. About why the Beast got stabbed to death by fucking faeries of all thing.”

 

  1. _I appoint, choose, elect_



For once things aren’t going badly. Nobody is dead, trapped in another world, or otherwise incapacitated.

 

Fen still sees the ghosts dancing behind her eyes, the walls painted red with blood… but every day it’s fading. Every day Margo mocks her viciously before kidnapping her for a spa day, or Eliot’s emotional shields slip further. When Alice sits with her for hours, helping her dig out the records regarding taxation rates and enforcement during the Golden Years of Good King Rupert’s reign, or Quentin searches for her to excitedly ask about another moment in Fillorian history, or Penny comes to her sheepishly to ask about apologising to the Keeper of Chatwin’s Torrent.

 

(She helps him apologise, and then immediately calls in her favour by introducing him to the faery queen and asking him to look into Irene MacAllister. The last she heard both of them had met up with Julia and Kady and were on a quid-pro-quo trickster god defeating, slave rebellion series of mini quests).  

 

She’s more assured, this new Fen. The Fen who’s seen the worst happen. And surprisingly people listen to her: Eliot and Margo who historically made their own, stumbling way through ruling will sometimes ask her advice or input on things, or will suddenly appear next to her during one of her insomnia-driven study sessions, leafing through books on governance. They learn together, the Knifemaker’s daughter and the children of Earth, none of whom asked to be king, all of whom were destined for it.

 

Life isn’t perfect. But...it’s enough. For now.

 

(Months later, once Quentin and Alice have finally progressed past the awkward we-don’t-know-how-to-talk-to-each-other stage and gained something resembling peace and tentative friendship, Fen leans over to whisper in Eliot’s ear at their monthly ‘yay, still not dead/at war’ celebration and whispers: “I think Quentin is definitely husband material.”

 

Watching her normally put together husband splutter on his (‘still-shitty Fen, we have to introduce you to some real alcohol’) wine while Quentin worriedly get him a glass of water, ummm Eliot, you’re turning red, are you ok? Fen catches Margo’s approving eye and smiles in the warm glow of a job well done).

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this, and I hope you enjoyed one of the most self-indulgent, wish fulfilment-y things I have ever written. And I have written a lot of nonsense in my time.  
> I am on Tumblr as [Nemainofthewater ](https://nemainofthewater.tumblr.com)


End file.
